West Stockbridge Sparkles

Berkshire Attractions

There's a lot to do during your stay in our Berkshire vacation rental, be it summer, fall, winter or spring.

In spring, and in fact all year, the area offers the opportunity to visit local wineries and breweries, meet artisian cheese makers, shop the lovely antique and craft shops and explore an array of outlet shops as well as charming boutiques in surrounding villages.

Summer activities include biking, hiking, tennis, horseback riding, hot air ballooning, swimming, water parks, canoe tours, fishing, skeet shooting lessons at the Stockbridge Sportsmen Club as well as white water rafting on the Deerfield river. Catamount offers lifts to mountain tops for access to mountain bike trails; Jiminy Peak has the trails as well as tubing. Golf is available at a number of public courses which include Cranwell Resort Spa & Golf Club and Egremont Country Club. For a full list of courses, click on the link to Golf Clubs below. Jacob's Pillow, the avant garde dance company founded in 1933 by Ted Shawn, is situated in the town of Becket. Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, is in nearby Lenox. Links to these and other websites can be found at the bottom of this page.

Autumn is a celebration of foliage, the crisp colors a perfect background for apple and pumpkin picking. The historic Mohawk trail leads to the top of Mount Greylock and is a lovely scenic drive.

Winter provides sledding, ice skating, snow mobiling as well as downhill and cross country skiing. There are a number of ski areas in the vicinity: Bousquet (sometimes referred to as Bosquet) is on the Lenox/Pittsfield border; Butternut is in Great Barrington; Catamount is in South Egremont; and Jiminy Peak and Brodie are in Hancock. Even the trails of southern Vermont are close enough for day trips.

There are also wonderful museums in the area. Norman Rockwell resided in Stockbridge, and his museum is located between Stockbridge and West Stockbridge. Chesterwood, where Daniel Chester French designed and crafted his sculpture for the seated Lincoln memorial in Washington, is also nearby. Edith Wharton's lovely home The Mount is in Lenox, and Herman Melville's Arrowhead farm, where he wrote Moby Dick, is open to the public in Pittsfield.

Wildlife also plays an important part of life in the Berkshires. The mountains abound with all forms of lovely animals. Recent sightings include deer, moose, bear, fox, racoon, skunk, coyote, bobcat, rabbit, chipmonk, woodchuck, eagle, owl, wild turkey, duck and geese. Some local farms even offer the opportunity to get an up-close look at that vital part of the area's ecomony. Uncle Don's Barnyard has a hay maze, hayrides, pedal tractors and petting animals.

To find out more about the attractions and activities available, click on the links below. Note that listings in black do not have websites and need to be contacted by phone or a personal visit.